Saturday, July 9, 2011

Thaksin is corrupt. There is no doubt on that. His is hardly a socialist but what differentiate Thaksin from the rest is, Thaksin wants to do something for the poor. He wants the country to advance. In comparison, the rest of Thai premier and politician are hell-bent on squeezing as much blood from the people as possible, very often using criminal means -- all without doing anything for the country.

The most important thing he did was the 30 baht/visit healthcare (around S$1.50). The 30 baht payment was later reduced to zero by subsequent government. The 1st year cost for the program is just a meagre US175 million for a total Thai population of 60 million people. That really debunk the myths that free healthcare is bankrupting the government.

The price cost is low because Thaksin administration has focus on basic ailments, accident and emergency, in addition, some ceilings and limited choice of drugs are imposed on chronic elderly diseases and HIV.

Universal and relentless attacks on Thaksin health reform by academics(corrupt)
The contemporary academics are corrupt beyond imagination. One could hardly find good things they have written about Thaksin health reform. Strangely, those corrupt academic and PAP seems to share roughly similar criticism against universal healthcare.

A very frequently criticism against free health care is cost. Many cite western country health care cost structure as an example. This is extremely dishonest. In western countries, the main reason of high medical cost is due to medical cartel involving big pharma and doctor cartel. These parasite will charge couple of hundreds US$ for consultation and dispensing cheap drug just for simple ailment like flu -- to individual (in USA) or to the state (in Europe). In the other extreme like India, such disease can be cured simply by buying less than a dollar of drug from the pharmacy. The example of India manifest the true cost of basic healthcare as well as the exploitive nature of medical cartel.

Next, basher often points to high cost of drugs and machines to justify against universal healthcare. This is another lie. While boutique drug and fancy equipment do result to high healthcare cost, NONE of these comes into the picture of basic healthcare, which require just cheap generic drug.

In chronic elderly healthcare, some of them such as basic diabetic control is cheap. Some of them can be expensive. Nevertheless, a list can still be drawn so that certain diseases that are less expensive to treat can be dispense freely or in a nominal price to the people.

And many many more groundless criticism ....etc and lies....etc trying to discredit universal healthcare.

Yingluck

The people know who take care of them
Despite the absence of Thaksin and the inexperience of his sister Yingluck, the Thai elected Pheau Thai party on an ever greater margin of 265 seat out of 500.

Implication for PAP
PAP is an ultra corrupt party. They will probably repeat their chant to warn us the danger of universal healthcare and dismiss it as populist, short-sighted and raiding the reserve.

Now, Thai is paying nothing to doctor when he has fever. Singaporean pays S$30 for such visit. Lee Kuan Yew and Lee Hsien Loong is going to be remembered as clowns in the future history textbook.